From the Vault | A Chat With Annie Duke (Part 1)

This episode of Books for Men features an edition of "From the Vault." It’s part one of a great chat I had on my previous pod, It's Not What It Seems, with Annie Duke, author of Thinking in Bets, How to Decide, and most recently, Quit. Listen for more! (Original publish date: 8/26/18.) 

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Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So, I'm going to keep this preamble pretty short, mostly because I want to jump right into today's episode. It is a From the Vault episode with none other than Annie Duke. And the conversation that I had with her that now dates almost five years, believe it or not, pre-pandemic, it centered around her book at the time, Thinking in Bets: How to Make Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts. And this interview goes into the nitty gritty of decision-making. And we had so much fun with the conversation that we ended up doing a part two, which I'll be sharing with you next week. And this is the reason why I decided to not do a nonfiction book on the podcast this month because both of our conversations center around her book Thinking in Bets. It really is in my eyes, a must-read. If you are a nonfiction fan, especially a big idea fan.

(01:06)

Many of you might have already read it. It was very, very popular and for good reason when it came out. It's in my top five when it comes to nonfiction, and that's of all time. So it goes without saying how much I think of the work, but also as I think you'll learn in both of these conversations, Annie's thinking as a whole. She's such a critical thinker and somebody who I really just admire on a lot of levels. So I'm really happy and honored to share this conversation again with you. And I should mention that Annie has a brand-new book out called Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away. And I can't recommend that highly enough. Not only does it pair well with the book that you'll hear in the discussion today, but it also pairs well with her follow-up, How to Decide.

(01:57)

And also, it's very complimentary to an episode that we did all the way back in November of last year on The Dip by Seth Godin. So quitting is a subject matter that we have some familiarity with on the show, and it's a subject matter that I think is super important and critical to one's life. So definitely go check that out as well. Now with that being said since there will be no ending to this episode, I did just want to remind you that for more information, you can always visit BooksforMen.org, where you could get full transcripts for the episodes, as well as sign up for the newsletter, which is a monthly roundup of every episode with full book and author information, all the best quotes and newsletter-only book recommendations. So again, you could do that at BooksforMen.org. And before we jump in, if you enjoy the episode, please remember to share it with friends, family members, and other people who you think might enjoy it. Word of mouth is everything when spreading awareness. And for this podcast specifically, it's to inspire more men to read. And if you want to double down on that support, please do so by rating, reviewing, following, liking, subscribing, and all that good stuff on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on. So without further ado, here is a conversation that I had on my previous podcast. It's not what it seems with Annie Duke centered around her book, Thinking in Bets: How to Make Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts.

Douglas Vigliotti (03:35)

Annie Duke, welcome to the show.

Annie Duke (03:37)

Thanks for having me.

Douglas Vigliotti (03:38)

I'm super, super excited for you to be here. So I feel like you are almost destined to be on this show. It, it's a podcast to inspire open-mindedness, and the whole idea of outcomes not being what they seem is kind of like the idea, I guess that birthed, It's Not What It Seems. And just full disclosure, I loved your book Thinking in Bets: How to Make Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts. When do we ever Have all the facts, right? It's like one of those things.

Annie Duke (04:05)

Thank you. Yeah, like never.

Douglas Vigliotti (04:05)

<Laugh> Exactly. So, we'll, we'll definitely, definitely get into the book, but with that being said, I kind of want it to peel back. I wanted to start with a quote that I heard you say, so I heard, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've heard somebody ask you this question, what advice would Annie now give to Annie who just started her poker career? And you said something that was very, very interesting and I was hoping you can elaborate a little bit more on it.

Annie Duke (04:32)

Okay. Well, first of all, I'm on the edge of my seat to know what I said. <laugh>

Douglas Vigliotti (04:37)

So I wish I knew there was something to learn from everyone at the table because the worst person could teach you the most important lesson. It was some variation of that.

Annie Duke (04:49)

That's actually a thing. I think. So. There you go. <Laugh>

Douglas Vigliotti (04:51)

<Laugh> So I was hoping that you could maybe talk about what could the worst person teach you that the best person couldn't?

Annie Duke (05:01)

Oh my gosh. Well, there's a variety of different ways at it. So, oh, how do we unpack this? Let me start with this. Number one is that sometimes we assess someone as the worst person at the table and it turns out they're actually not. And if you're not open-minded to trying to figure out what it is that you can learn from them, we're so good at interpreting what people are doing in light of what our own biases are, that we might not figure out that someone who we thought was not so smart or not really adept at what they were doing that we thought was the worst player at the table, actually wasn't and was actually really good. It was just that they were doing things that were unconventional that maybe we didn't understand. So that's sort of at the top level. I think that we have a tendency to dismiss people. I mean, you see this in politics, right? Like if someone from the other tribe in politics opens their mouth, it's not like you're listening to what they're saying. It's not like you're trying to learn from them because you're just categorizing them as someone who has nothing interesting to say. And you might miss out on finding out that they actually do have some interesting things to say. So that's number one.

Douglas Vigliotti (06:10)

So you’re letting the label dictate how you view the situation?

Annie Duke (06:13)

Yeah. It's like you've decided they're a bad player. Like in poker, you've decided they're a bad player. So you sort of like you closed your mind off to the idea that maybe they're not, because you already decided that and because you decided that when they do things that you don't understand, you don't look at that as if, well maybe they're doing something that's actually good. You say I don't understand that because it's bad because I've decided they're a bad player. So you're allowing the label to dictate the way that you're doing them, and then you're missing out on the opportunity to reverse the way that you view them. So that's like at the top level. But then when we get down into actually like tactics or strategy, there's sort of two things that you're going to miss out on. The first is that it's very rare that no matter how bad somebody is at their job or how bad they are at whatever they're doing, there isn't one thing that they're doing well.

(07:06)

So, we could play poker against each other, and on the whole, in the gestalt, I'm a better player than you, but there's usually going to be at least one thing that even though you're not a particularly good player, that you do better than me. And I should be watching for that so that I could see what that thing is and learn from it, incorporate it into my game. And I should be always trying to figure out what those things are. It's usually going to be more than one thing. So there are lots of different things that combine to make you a great player. And while you might on the whole not execute well, there's probably at least one tactic that you're employing that maybe is going to be better than what I do at the table. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that even if I figure out that, no, like on the whole you're a bad player, the fact that I'm not just looking at you and dismissing you, but I'm actually trying to find out like, why are you doing what you're doing? Are you doing it because it's actually a good thing? Or because you don't know what you're doing? I'm now digging much more deeply down into your strategy and the way that you think and the tactics that you employ in order to execute your strategy, which is going to allow me to understand you better as an opponent, which means that I'm going to be able to come up with better counter strategies, even if the end I decide that you're not a particularly good player, I'm going to be more effective against you because I've open-mindedly, examined your game.

Douglas Vigliotti (08:32)

Yeah. So, it's kind of like the idea, so of peeling back to your correlation there with politics, it's kind of like the idea that if a Republican or a Democrat says something, then this is what a Republican or Democrat is supposed to say. So we don't listen to them because that's what they're saying, right? Oh, this is what bad players are supposed to do. So now everything they do has to line up with what a bad player is supposed to do.

Annie Duke (08:52)

Right? So, so for example, let's say you're a Democrat, and let's look at what we're missing out on, right? Let's say you're a Democrat. I think that we can say that a hundred percent of the policies that some Republicans might have, a hundred percent of them probably aren't idiotic or bad for the country. There's probably one or two policy ideas they have in there and if you're a Democrat, right? You're viewing it this way. I can say that if you're a Republican, a hundred percent of the policies that Democrats have probably aren't bad for the country. So first of all, you should be trying to figure out what the policy ideas that someone in the other political tribe has that maybe I could understand and incorporate because it actually is a good idea and can cause me to rethink. But even so, let's say that you like, you want your political party to like to take over the world and like get the majority in whatever body it is or you know, the majority of governorships or whatever, really understanding your opponent by trying to open-mindedly, examine all of the policies that they have with the idea that some of them may be good, some of them may be appealing, some of them may have really good downstream effects, whatever it might be.

(10:06)

In doing that process, you're not just going to view them as all Republicans are the same, as a Democrat, or if you're a Republican, all Democrats are the same. You're going to understand what that particular person thinks and what the flavor of their Republican or Democrat is, what type of flavor they are. Yes. So that as you try to run against them, you're going to better understand how to counter what they're doing. Because you'll understand how the way that they think better. And by the way, you'll probably learn something along the way, which is <laugh>, which is a better thing because not all Republicans are the same and not all Democrats are the same. And so to kind of lump everybody together and you're just somebody I shouldn't listen to across the board, that's insanity. And by the way, it's part of the insanity that we're seeing in our political discourse right now.

Douglas Vigliotti (10:55)

Totally. So I couldn't agree with you more. It's the majority of what you just said there. So I think that was a good opening to our discussion here, just on the general nature of the power of open-mindedness and what it could do for decision-making in general. And I kind of want to peel back a little bit and go to take this in a little bit of a different direction and talk about a big decision that you made in your life. And go back to when you were in college and you graduated from Columbia, you were awarded National Science Foundation Fellowship to study cognitive psychology at UPenn. And then you were literally on the cusp of getting your Ph.D. Okay, so you're literally on the cusp. Correct me if I'm wrong, then all of a sudden…

Annie Duke (11:31)

No, that's correct. I was.

Douglas Vigliotti (11:32)

Then all of a sudden you throw in the towel, leave school and move to Montana with your husband. I think it was your then-husband.

Annie Duke (11:40)

It was my husband, my then-husband.

Douglas Vigliotti (11:42)

Okay. That seems like an awfully hard decision to make. How did you make that decision and why did you make that decision?

Annie Duke (11:49)

So I actually look at this moment in my life is actually very instructive. So here's the thing. The way that our futures turn out, and how our future unfolds is the result of exactly two things: luck and the quality of the decisions that we make. You can sum those together. That's it. Just, it's, that's literally it. There's luck involved and there's the quality of the decisions we make. So one of the ways that luck expresses itself is that no matter what decision you make, there are always more possible futures than the ones that will actually happen. And which actual future occurs is something that you basically have no control over through the quality of your decisions, you can increase the likelihood of one of the more favorable futures happening, but which of those futures occurs, you know, who knows, right? Like that's just going to be a matter of the turn of the cards.

(12:47)

So, recognizing that fact actually makes you a better decision-maker. But I think that people, particularly when they're thinking about those kinds of outcomes, like an outcome like mine, where like, oh, I became a champion poker player. Acknowledging the amount of luck that's involved in the way that happens, I think they feel like it discounts their own decision-making abilities. And I actually feel just the opposite. I feel like what makes you a better decision-maker is really embracing the fact that there's a lot of luck. So, let me roll back to this weird thing that, you know, how did I, how was I going off literally on my way to New York City for my job interview to become a professor at NYU, right? So I'm going off from my job talk at NYU when all of this happens. So that's how far down the road I was. I was going to go audition for these professorships. So I had been struggling with stomach issues during the last year of graduate school. And as I was going out to my job talks, the first one being at NYU the stomach issues really got very bad. And I landed in the hospital for two weeks. So, I, I was on an IV, I couldn't keep any food down. I was really, really sick.

Douglas Vigliotti

So obviously a little jolt of randomness.

Annie Duke (14:01)

A big jolt of randomness, exactly. So I had to cancel all of my job talks and I needed to take some time to recuperate. Now I can tell you by the way that at this time in my life, I thought that I was having very bad luck. You know, I mean, you know, I was in the hospital for two weeks, obviously, I thought this was a very bad thing that had happened to me. So the reason why I went to Montana was to recuperate. When I was out of the hospital, I was still really sick, and it took me a long time to recover. I had lost during this process, I'd lost like 20 or 25 pounds. I mean, I actually couldn't keep food down for a while. So I, I needed to get healthy again. And my plan was to go back to school and go back out the year to become a professor. And during that time is when I started playing poker. Frankly, because I needed money. So I didn't have a fellowship, I wasn't teaching. So I, you know, when I was at Penn I was teaching classes and they, they did actually pay you for that. And so I, I really didn't have any form of income. And so, my brother Howard Lederer had already been playing poker by that time for many years, I think about 10 years by that point.

(15:18)

And he just suggested to me as I was recuperating in Montana, which is where my ex-husband's family was from. That's why we landed in Montana. Cause we went and we were basically with his family. He suggested to me that there were legal poker games in Montana, and maybe I should do that in the meantime while I was trying to, you know, while I was waiting to go back to school. So I did, I started playing poker there just to support myself and you know, obviously the rest is kind of history. Like the meantime turned into 18 years and I played poker until 2012 when I retired and won a few things along the way and obviously had a really thriving career. And it was great. And that's sort of where I ended up. So when I look back on that now, I'm like, oh, that was pretty good luck <laugh>, right? Totally. Oh, that was pretty good luck that I got sick. But, the point is that the fact that I ended up playing poker really was because, you know, I got thrown a curve ball, this very unexpected future occurred where I was sick and I couldn't go out. And I just looked around and said, okay, what do I do now? Yeah. And then I pursued that thing that I loved. And so that's kind of how I ended up there.

Douglas Vigliotti (16:27)

That's interesting. And I think that that happens a lot in our lives and I think a lot of us can probably relate to that is the idea that what do we do now, you know what next, and in the book you're pretty open about the opportunity that you had to be around and learn from a lot of poker greats like your brother who you had just mentioned, one of your mentors you mentioned Eric Seidel in the book as well mm-hmm. And undoubtedly that group or that mentorship has impacted your poker learning curve, impacted your trajectory. So I guess my question is, was there one lesson maybe you learned that stuck with you forever or has impacted you during that time of learning under a group of advisors, so to speak, or mentors? And, and also as a follow-up question, many of us don't necessarily have that luxury, so to speak, or experience that good fortune. So how do you suggest people find or create that type of environment to help them learn something new for themselves?

Annie Duke (17:26)

Okay, so let me address the first part first, which is, is there a lesson that stuck with me? And the answer is absolutely. There's a lesson that has completely defined me, I think in a lot of ways. So Eric Seidel, who you mentioned, one of the greatest players ever. He's won over 38 million in tournament poker. My brother started playing when I was pretty young and one of his peers was Eric Seidel. So I met Eric Seidel long before I started playing poker. I think I first met him when I was 16. And I didn't start playing poker until I was 26. So I knew Eric for a very long time before I was ever like his peer, you know, I mean at 26 I wasn't his peer, but before I was ever trying to do the same thing that he was right where I was trying to be a poker player like he was. So, he was just like a good friend of mine. So now I start playing poker just like he does. And at some point, very early on I got knocked out of a tournament with some, you know, a sad story, which is often how you get knocked out of tournaments is, you know, you have some hand and it's very sad because you lose it and you know, it's very unfair because you were mathematically favored to win. And wah, wah.

Douglas Vigliotti (18:45)

You go tap your buddy on the shoulder, do you believe …. do you want to know what just happened to me? Could you believe what just happened? <Laugh>

Annie Duke (18:50)

Right? So that's called a bad beat story. So a bad beat is when you have a hand that's mathematically favored to win and you lose even. So that happens like every other hand of poker, right? Like, so it's just sort of part of the game. So anyway, I went up to Eric Seidel and I said, you know, wah, wah—I lost his hand. Sad, sad, sad. I'm paraphrasing. <laugh>

Douglas Vigliotti (19:13)

Don't expect you to remember a word for word. I mean…

Annie Duke (19:15)

Well no, I'm joking cause it's like, it's, it’s don't even need to know the details. Like, it's just the same story's like no, I had the best hand and I'm really sad ‘cause that guy played really bad and blah.

Douglas Vigliotti (19:26)

He stayed in. Yeah, yeah…

Annie Duke (19:28)

Yeah, so I went up to say this to him and he was actually, he was pretty abrupt with me. And basically what he said is like, why are you telling me this? I don't care. And he elaborated and said, you know, I have my own bad beats that I'm trying to emotionally deal with. Like why are you offloading this emotion onto me? And this is where it really was important. He said, if it really was just bad luck, you can't do anything about it anyway. So like why are you telling me about this? You're just making me sad and you're just staying sad. There's literally no point. If there's nothing you could have changed about the way that you played, that would've changed the outcome of that hand. So what you're done, like, okay, it was just a matter of luck. You who cares.

(20:09)

Remember it's just luck in the quality of your decisions, the luck stuff you have no control over. Just remember that. So that's what he was telling me there and then he followed it with, but if you have a question, like if you want to discuss the strategy or figure out if you played the hand well, if you could have something different, I'm all ears. Yeah. And he, that was such an important moment in my life because he was really pointing out the difference between luck and skill. Like stop, stop. Why are you telling me a story that's mainly about luck? I want a story that's mainly about decision quality because decision quality is a thing that's the skill portion of the game.

Douglas Vigliotti (20:42)

It's the controllable, right?

Annie Duke (20:43)

Right. That's the thing where if you repeat the same decisions over and over again, you can actually improve your outcomes. That's the stuff that's interesting to me. But if all you want to do is tell me that luck didn't go your way, like what's the point of that? And I think that that was such an important moment because it's not what most people do. And he really sort of jolted me. And the thing is that I so badly wanted Eric Seidel's approval. Like I really badly wanted it.

Douglas Vigliotti (21:09)

<Laugh>. I feel like that's a common thread in a lot of people's lives too. Like, there's that one person that they're, they're yearning for their approval and they just can't seem to get it right. Like you just can't seem him to get it and you think you could finally relate to them on some level. So you go over all like happy and cherry and you're like, you're never going to believe what happened to me. And then he's just like, he's like no. <laugh>

Annie Duke (21:28)

But notice, notice what he did. Right? So now I know if I want his approval, I need to ask him interesting questions. Like I need to actually have some difficult hands, doesn't matter whether I won or lost them. So now when I went back and played, I was actually looking for material. Like I was like a comic looking for material after an open mic night. So now I'm actually viewing the game differently, right? Like I'm not viewing the game through just like this confirmation of like, I'm a great player and when I lose, I'm unlucky, let me tell you about it. Instead, I'm, I'm looking for interesting moments that I want to discuss with him because I'm not sure whether I've done the right or wrong thing. And that was a really interesting hand. Like whether I played the hand or somebody else played the hand, whether I won the hand or whether I lost the hand, I want to explore. So now when I go up to him and I say, oh, I think I really butchered this hand. Like I really think I butchered this hand, let me tell you about it. And I walked the hand and his face is lighting up and now he was talking.

Douglas Vigliotti (22:27)

Yeah. So it kind of reminds me of the whole idea of if you're going to bring me a problem, bring me a solution as well. Right? Right. Yeah. Like, so if you're going to bring a problem to me, don't just come here complaining and tell me that we have a problem. Come to me and say we have this problem. Here's what I think we can do to solve it. What do you think about it? Right? So it's almost like a play on that a little bit.

Annie Duke (22:48)

Yeah. So can I actually reverse that?

Douglas Vigliotti (22:50)

Totally go for it.

Annie Duke (22:51)

So if you go to somebody and you say, we have this problem, it's better to say I have a solution, but I'd like to hear what you think first.

Douglas Vigliotti (23:00)

Ah, I like that.

Annie Duke (23:01)

And the reason why is that if you say what you believe, it will change what their advice is.

Douglas Vigliotti (23:06)

Anchor, right? You're anchoring with their solution. That's interesting.

Annie Duke (23:11)

Yeah. So, it's fine to let them know that you have a solution, but you want to actually go and, and keep them as open-minded as possible. And the thing is that even when someone's trying to be actively open-minded, once you've told them what you believe, you're going to change the way they speak to you. So let's go back to politics for example. I go up to you and I say, I read this really interesting article, here's what it said. I think it sounds right. What do you think? Now what did I ask you what you thought of the article? Like I, I just told you that I, I liked it, and I thought it was good and now that's going to change the way that you now tell me what you are now going to start thinking, oh, well she likes the article, particularly if we're friends or you respect me or that kind of thing. You're going to now start thinking about that article. Like, why should you like it?

Douglas Vigliotti (23:52)

Yeah. I feel like this happens all the time. So, I can remember specific examples of this with my brother and my family specifically. We, so we used to drink, you know, we, we, we'll often get together and we taste like a bunch of beers and it's always like, if you lead with this is a pretty good beer, what do you think? Then

Annie Duke (24:06)

Oh my god. Yup.

Douglas Vigliotti (24:07)

Now it's like, oh this is doom. The beer's got to be good. Now it's in his head that it's good, it's going to be good. It's the same thing. It's like you're anchoring with that information. And so now they're, they're conditioned to believe that that's true. Right?

Annie Duke (24:19)

Right. So instead I should just send you the article and say thought this was interesting, would love to hear what you think. Yeah. Period. Let you offer that up and then we can have a discussion about it. Because what you say to me is going to have a lot higher fidelity now. So anyway, so I just wanted to add that in. But yeah, so that's the thing is that that actually kind of leads me to what you asked about like okay, how do you, how do you create that group?

Douglas Vigliotti (24:46)

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Annie Duke (24:47)

So thing number one is that when you're trying to find a mentor, it's really bad to say, will you be my mentor? Because that just sounds like work to somebody. But the way that Eric ended up becoming my mentor is that I started coming to him with really interesting questions. He guided me toward this, but I just came and started asking him interesting questions and because I was asking him interesting questions, he wanted to engage with me, and I've seen this a million times, I've seen this with myself, that when someone comes up and instead of just saying like, oh, will you teach me or will you, you know, will you become my teacher? If you say, will you become my teacher? I'll be like, here's what I'm going to charge. But if you come to me and say, I had this really difficult hand, let me ask you about it. If it really is a very interesting question and I engage with you and I find out that you're really curious and really open-minded to having a discussion about it, now you've engaged me and you've opened up the door for future engagement and as you keep doing that, I become invested in you and I'm much more likely to end up being your mentor that way.

Douglas Vigliotti (25:53)

I'm sure it added to the fact that you implemented what he was suggesting to you. Right. So, whatever advice Eric gave you, you then would turn around and actually go do it and then provide actual feedback on that advice specifically..

Annie Duke (26:07)

Right? Yeah, exactly.

Douglas Vigliotti (26:08)

And so then it showed that not only were you listening, but you actually were taking action on the lessons that he was teaching you.

Annie Duke (26:14)

Right? Exactly. So you can come, you can come with an interesting question. You could come and ask somebody for guidance or help with something like, so if you're younger and you're trying to talk to somebody who you sort of see might be a good mentor who's ahead of you in their career trajectory and you're having difficulty deciding, for example, between two jobs. So it's like a very specific problem. Just go and, and ask for advice on just that problem. Now what happens is that then the person's going to circle back and say, hey, what did you decide? How did that work out? And now that opens up the dialogue where you've engaged them, where they become invested in you to open up further dialogue, and lo and behold, you end up with a mentor that way. So, you want to do it bottom up, not top down.

Douglas Vigliotti (26:58)

That's cool. That's, that's interesting. So you mentioned a couple of times throughout our conversation that it's about two things, decision quality plus luck, right? So I think there's a third element that you definitely allude to and it's the big picture, right? So it's the sum of your decision quality plus luck, right? So it's the big picture. So, I want to, how does the big picture play into decision quality and luck in your analysis of both?

Annie Duke (27:26)

So first of all, I would say that I'm interpreting the big picture as what are your goals and values.

Douglas Vigliotti (27:31)

Sure. Could be anything. Yes, sure.

Annie Duke (27:33)

Yeah. So that's part of the skill element is like properly identifying that now whether you can actually get to the big picture, like whether you can actually attain your goals. That's going to be some sort of combination of luck and skill, right? And also, by the way, what is available to you in terms of what goals you could accomplish or also going to be a matter of the sum of luck and skills. So for example, I mean this is literally taking it to an absurd level, but I think that it will reveal this. If you were born in 1650, you couldn't execute a goal to be a computer scientist, right? I mean there wasn't electricity.

Douglas Vigliotti (28:15)

It’s impossible. Yeah, yeah.

Annie Duke (28:15)

Right. It would be impossible. It's a much different thing if you're born in New Jersey in 1980 to affluent parents to say, I want to be a lawyer than if you're born in 1980 in South Sudan to say, I want to be a, lawyer. Right? The probability that you could actually execute that goal or ever get there is going to be different due to element things that just have to do with luck. Like the matter of your birth, for example, when were you born, who were you born, to what country were you born?

Douglas Vigliotti (28:50)

So it's even more of a case than to be open-minded. Correct?

Annie Duke (28:54)

Yes. <Laugh>

Douglas Vigliotti (28:56)

So here's a really simple question for you. What is a good decision? And simple isn't easy. So when I say simple, it's not easy, but what is a good decision?

Annie Duke (29:05)

Yeah. I would say that a good decision is one in which given the information that you have available to you and I, I'm assuming that you've, you've uncovered the information that's relevant to the decision that's available to you. So you, you've done a good job of trying to properly identify the information that you need, okay? That you are executing a decision that maximizes your return on whatever the thing it is that you are trying to maximize. So, let me explain what I mean by that. There are different things that you might want to maximize. So part, part of the decision is being able to properly identify what it is that you value. So you might value, for example, time, right? That you, you might want to have lots of time, or you might value happiness over money. You might value money over all else. You might value things that have to do with your health. So whatever it is that you, your values are in terms of what it is that you're trying to execute on, that you have properly used, all the information that you have to execute on a decision that has the highest probability of getting you the highest return on the thing it is that you value.

Douglas Vigliotti (30:15)

Okay? So let me ask you, how would you evaluate what doesn't happen in your decision? How do you look at what doesn't happen? Because if, if there's a certain degree of what you're looking at, if you're only accounting for what you know, then the outcome of what happens, how do you account for what doesn't happen as a result of whatever you've done?

Annie Duke (30:39)

You know, I think this is one of the really big problems, which is that we're trying to drive a positive narrative of our lives all the time. We want to feel like we're good decision makers like we're good actors and like the things that go well or because we made really good decisions. And so of course they were supposed to happen that way. And the things that go poorly, either one of two things, they weren't our fault, it was a matter of luck, then we're not responsible for it. Or if we determined that it wasn't a matter of luck, we wanted to be the case, that there's something that we could have done differently, that could have caused a good outcome. So that we feel like we have more control over the way that our future turns out. We want to feel like we're the masters of our own fate, let's put it that way.

(31:27)

So, if we want to feel like we're the masters of our own fate, those are the three ways that we can get there. Way number one is when you have good outcomes, they're because you're the master of your own fate. And when you have bad outcomes, well, if it's due to luck, then it's not a matter of mastering. Or if you can find a way that you could change the outcome going forward, then at least you could master your own, be the master of your own faith going forward. The problem with that is that that's a really bad strategy for becoming a better decision maker because in order to become a really good decision maker, you have to really examine lots and lots of different decisions, including the ones that you don't execute, which are most of the things that you do. Mostly we're choosing not to do things right? There's some handful of things that we choose to do and then a whole bunch of stuff that we choose not to do. But we tend not to examine those. And I think the reason is that we're afraid of the regret we might feel when we discover that a thing that we chose not to do would've actually been better than the thing that we did.

Douglas Vigliotti (32:34)

So could you give an example of that?

Annie Duke (32:36)

Yeah. So let's say, and then I can actually give you an example of what will actually force us to examine it. Let's say that, you're choosing among a bunch of stocks that maybe you want to invest in, right? And then you pull the trigger, and you invest in a particular stock, you're going to tend not to examine the stock you didn't choose. Now if it's Google, you don't have a choice ‘cause it's in your face. If you chose not to buy Google, then I guess you have to look at it. But like for example, let's say that you have a choice between two jobs, right? And one is in Boston and one is in New York and you take the job in New York and you know, it works out pretty well. Are you ever saying, but what if I had taken that job in Boston?

(33:21)

Would it have been even better? Would I have been happier? No, because you don't want to feel like once you bank the decision, you just want to be done with it. You're not going to explore all the other lines and you're relatively happy in the job in New York anyway. And then what you really don't do, so you're, you're definitely not looking at the one that you explicitly didn't choose, but what you're also not doing is, well, maybe I could have found a job in Houston or Iowa or Idaho or Montana or Oregon, or maybe I could have had a completely different career altogether, right? Because you're just sort of like, well I'm happy in what I'm doing. And so, you want to just kind of leave it be.

Douglas Vigliotti (34:02)

So this kind of reminds me of some of the, so there's some of the, the work I think is Arie Kruglanski. I think that's who it is, he’s a psychologist. He coined the term cognitive closure. So yeah, our need to have this cognitive closure in our lives and we, it actually determines our behavior. It actually determines what we do next we want to box you in, we want to stereotype you, and we want to close that cognitive loop as fast as we possibly can. It's that craving for certainty, right? So I think that this kind of is, this idea is kind of a branch off of that in a sense, no?

Annie Duke (34:38)

Oh no for absolutely it is exactly right. You want to cognitively close the position out and you don't really want to open it back up again because you just want to be done with it. So we can think about that kind of like mirror images of each other. So when we have a good outcome, we just bank it, right? We're just like, awesome, I'm a great decision maker, I had a great outcome. Look at me, I’m the master of my own fate. But what we don't do is say two things. We don't look at that and ask two separate questions. One is, well, I had this good outcome, but maybe it wasn't actually a matter of my skill at all. Maybe I just got lucky. Yeah, right? Maybe it's just a matter of luck that I happen to have this good outcome and it's not actually repeatable. Now what's important about that question is that you don't want to repeat a behavior that resulted in, a good outcome solely because of luck, right? I mean obviously that you're not guaranteed the same outcome again. But the other question that we don't ask ourselves is, okay, I had a good outcome, but maybe if I had had a different process, I would've had an even better outcome. Right? So that's bad because you're not picking up like extra money that's lying on the floor then, or extra happiness that's lying on the floor, extra health that's lying on the floor. So, you could think about that for example, like let's say that I want to become healthier and I'm overweight and I, and I want to lose weight. And I don't know, like the Atkins diet, right? I might lose weight and then think, wow, what a good decision I did the Atkins diet. What I'm not asking was, was there a diet that would've been better than that where I would've also lost the weight and been healthier and had a better outcome that was more sustaining, right? You're just sort of leaving it be.

Douglas Vigliotti (36:25)

So I think there's another spin on the big picture, right? Like, so are we, are we looking at the big picture before we're making a decision? So are we actually taking into account all of the other diets that we possibly can be doing instead of doing this one? And instead what we do is we choose one bank it, forget about all the others, and actually, then we start defending, right? We start defending,

Annie Duke (36:48)

Oh, then we become an evangelist <laugh> and someone trusts us and says, you know, well actually I'm not doing Atkins. I'm just eating no processed food. And you're like, no, you can't do that. No potatoes for you. That's a disaster.

Douglas Vigliotti (37:03)

It's, it's like, it's the whole confirmation bias, right? So you're, you're looking for everything possible to confirm what you've already indicated to be true for you.

Annie Duke (37:11)

Right? So then on the, on the flip side, so on the winning side, we don't usually ask ourselves, well maybe that was just a matter of luck and we don't ask ourselves, well maybe even though this happened to work out for me, I could have actually done even better if I had done something else, maybe I could have actually done better.

Douglas Vigliotti (37:28)

Okay. So I feel like there's a third degree that really changes things a lot for us when we're trying to make quality decisions. And you definitely, definitely talk about it in the book and its emotions, right? Yeah. So how do emotions really play into our decision-making? So actually you talk about specifically there, there's a story, you, you opened the book with the Pete Carroll Super Bowl story. Yeah. And I think, I think it's easy to, I don't want to say easy, I think it's a common thread to talk about is that a good decision or is it a bad decision, right? Like that, he threw the ball versus run the ball. We, we all know how it ended up, well maybe not all of us. And…

Annie Duke (38:03)

It ended in a game-ending interception.

Douglas Vigliotti (38:05)

Exactly. Game-ending interception, Seahawks lose Super Bowl, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady become even more immortal than they already were. But the thing that always sticks in my head and that you definitely key on is, “the worst call in history” and like the, like you hear Cris Collinsworth say that in a, in a split second, you hear the media coin it, the worst call in history ever. But then you and I think this is a micro example of a macro concept of how emotions dictate our in-moment decision. So his decision to coin it, “the worst call in history” happened momentarily. Even though when we look back on it now, as you've done so well in the book, probabilistically and from a rational perspective, it seems to be like it was a pretty good call.

Annie Duke (38:51)

So it's, it's 26 seconds left. It's second down 2015 Super Bowl 49. The Seahawks are on the one-yard line of the Patriots and they're down by four. So, you know, obviously kicking a field goal isn't going to work here. They need to get a touchdown and everybody's expecting that Pete Carroll's going to have Russell Wilson hand the ball off to Marshawn Lynch who's like one of the greatest short-yardage running backs of all time. They're going to try to power through the Patriots line and instead, Pete Carroll calls for a pass play, which is famously intercepted by Malcolm Butler. Cris Collinsworth during the game, says, I can't believe that call. That's such a ridiculous call. How dumb. And then as you pointed out, the newspapers agreed. So here's the question that I posed in the book and then I'll pose to you I want you to just sort of like close your eyes and imagine that Pete Carroll calls that pass play and it's caught for the game-winning touchdown in the end zone in the last seconds of the Super Bowl. What do you think Cris Collinsworth is saying then?

Douglas Vigliotti (39:58)

It's the greatest call in Super Bowl history, right? <Laugh> Something to that tune, right?

Annie Duke (40:03)

How about this one? He out Belichicks Belichick.

Douglas Vigliotti (40:05)

Ah, there's a good one.

Annie Duke (40:07)

This is why the Seahawks were in the Super Bowl in the first place.

Douglas Vigliotti (40:12)

I could totally see it.

Annie Duke (40:14)

I could totally see it, right? You can feel it, right? Like that's the thing. You can feel it for yourself. And this is something that's called resulting, which is taking the quality of the outcome and working backward to the quality of the decision, which you cannot do when there's luck, right? Like you can't do it. That, that's absurd. It would be the same thing as if you run a red light and you get through safely saying, well that was a good decision. Or if you run a green light and someone T-bones you saying, well that was a bad decision, it's absurd, but this is what we do, right? We, we feel in our gut, oh that was such a bad outcome. And then partly I think because we want to be masters of our own fate, we say, well that must have been a really bad decision.

(40:58)

And we know that that has to be absurd because whether that decision or good is good or not on that one try has nothing to do with whether the ball was caught or whether it was intercepted. Because whatever led up to that moment of the ball being caught or intercepted, the decision-making is the same. And in this particular case, you kind of only need to know one fact to get you there, which is that kind of, depending on when you're like what data you're looking at, at least in the 2015 season, the interception rate in that particular from the one-yard line was, well, there were zero interceptions. If you looked over the last 15 seasons, that seems pretty aggressive ‘cause coverage has changed. But let's do that. Let's just be aggressive and look, over the last 15 seasons, the interception rate would've been about 2%. So basically, you know, the interception rate in that spot is somewhere between zero and 2%. So that means that you know, 98% plus of the time the ball's either going to be caught for a touchdown or just incomplete. And when it's incomplete, the clock stops and you can go back on Lynch, right? And you, you can still run the running flag.

Douglas Vigliotti (42:08)

So it's basically like a free roll.

Annie Duke (42:10)

Yes. It's like a free option or a free roll. It's costing you somewhere between zero and 2%. So that's it. So we know, look, I assume that when you make a decision where you have a really bad outcome, you know, one-ish percent of the time that when that bad outcome happens, let's just agree that you shouldn't say that was a terrible decision. Generally. I mean just, you know, it's not like he was like, oh, he did that thing, and 60% of the time it was going to be an interception. Like, okay, now all right, I'm with you, I'm with you on that. But like, oh, that was the worst decision ever. Because 1% of the time the ball was going to get intercepted. Like, okay, you're losing me now.

Douglas Vigliotti (42:49)

There's so much, so much, so much more that we can go into here and, but we're, we're kind of closing down on time, so I kind of want to, I wish I have a ton more things that we, we could, we could still, that we, that we'd be able to kind of pivot into there. But I guess this brings us to kind of towards the end of our conversation here and I'm going to just have three final questions for you. Okay. Before I do, I want to give you the opportunity, do you have any ask for the audience, where's the best place for you to connect with you online? Where could they go to find more out about Annie Duke, what she's up to now?

Annie Duke (43:21)

Sure. So let, let me start with the ask, which is I would love for everybody to go and check out HowIDecide.org. So that's a foundation that I co-founded. And what we do is try to, well, we create programs and curricula to promote critical thinking and decision skills in youth, particularly underserved youth. And then we're also doing field building, which is trying to create energy around the need to teach people, you know, to think about thinking, right? Like how, how do you become better at processing information? How do you develop critical thinking skills, decisions, fitness probabilities, all the stuff that goes into making a good decision and trying to bring people from different sectors together, from makers to business people to educators to academics to really start to create some energy around better critical thinking skills. So, you know, it's this kind of idea of like maybe, you know, we should be teaching less trigonometry and more statistics and probability. That’s the idea.

Douglas Vigliotti (44:21)

I love that.

Annie Duke (44:21)

So hopefully people will go look at HowIDecide.org. I think it's a really important mission to help kids, you know, learn how to make decisions. I mean particularly now there's so much information available, you know, with just a click.

Douglas Vigliotti (44:34)

Yeah, totally.

Annie Duke (44:35)

And I think that what we're learning, particularly as we're dealing with this over the past few years is that what people are good at finding the information, they're not so good at processing it and thinking about it and how, you know, how do you rationally process and you know, separate fact from fiction and really understand what it is that you're reading and that those are the kinds of skills that we're really trying to teach. So hopefully people will go look at it.

Douglas Vigliotti (44:57)

I can imagine that even becomes more important with the advent of social media and the impact that this has on our youth, right?

Annie Duke (45:04)

Well, we think so. So yes, that's exactly right. So hopefully people will go check it out at HowI Decide.org. In terms of where you can find me, go to AnnieDuke.com and you could contact me there if you wanted to hire me, you can hire me there. You can also find in their archives of my newsletter, I send out a newsletter once a week, which is really looking at things that are currently in the news. So for example, last week's newsletter, talked about the rescue in Thailand and then went on to talk about some theory about team building and sports and when it's okay to tank, you know, strip your team down to get young players and sell off your veterans to what does a weather forecast mean, right? Like, so it's really trying to look at things that are out in the news and apply it to, you know, critical thinking skills, decision making, cognitive bias, behavioral economics.

Douglas Vigliotti (46:00)

What does, what does 30% really mean, right? <Laugh>

Annie Duke (46:02)

Yes. Right. No, exactly. And actually, there's a piece in there about what people mean when they say likely or more likely than not, or definitely or sometimes, right? Which are all natural language ways of expressing probabilities. But we mean there's a wide range of what we mean. Like, if I said, well, that's likely to happen, I'd probably mean something and even probably mean something different than you do. So, you know, I might think that likely is like, you know, 40% and you might think likely is 80%. Like, so I, I sort of talk about this sort of miscommunication that occurs around this stuff. Anyway, luckily you can go read the archives before you subscribe to find out if you like, if you like what I'm writing. But I send out that once a week, so hopefully people can subscribe there. And then also you can also find me on Twitter @annieduke.

Douglas Vigliotti (46:51)

So everything will be linked up in the show notes for everyone. So they'll, they'll be able to find it pretty easily. So with that being said, I will ask you just three final questions. Okay. And one of them is, what's the one quota motto you live your life by?

Annie Duke (47:04)

Oh my gosh, there are so many.

Douglas Vigliotti (47:07)

Gimme one, the first one that comes to mind.

Annie Duke (47:09)

Well, it, it would probably be Feynman and it's something like, I'm going to butcher it a little bit, I'm not going to give it to you exactly, but it's something to the effect of you don't really know what something is unless you can explain it to an eight-year-old.

Douglas Vigliotti (47:23)

So I kind of have heard a similar and it might have been, Seth Godin said something similar. If you can't explain your position in eight words, then you don't have a position. <Laugh>

Annie Duke (47:33)

Yeah, actually I think that that was Seth. Yeah. So this is simple. So, so you know, what Feynman's trying to get at there is that having a lot of lingo and being able to say fancy words and like, sort of sounding smart, it doesn't mean that you actually understand a concept. Until you can properly teach it to somebody you don't really know it and you better be able to teach it simply so that an eight-year-old can understand.

Douglas Vigliotti (47:55)

I love that. So next question, what's one book that's impacted the way you think?

Annie Duke (48:01)

Ahhhh.

Douglas Vigliotti (48:03)

Okay, all it has to be is a book that's impacted the way you think.

Annie Duke (48:06)

Yeah, I know.

Douglas Vigliotti (48:07)

Not the most impactful. Any book.

Annie Duke (48:09)

I'm going to say The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins, which is a very big book about evolution. And the reason why I say that is because I think that he goes through so clearly what the difference between e theory and a hypothesis is what the scientific method is, and how you really go about proving something. And then he, he actually talks very much to what your topic is about open-mindedness. I mean, aside from really going through like what the evidence for evolution is, he says very clearly, but I really want everybody to understand that if someone came and showed me, you know, a fossil of a human being that was in the cretaceous layer, I would have to rethink everything that I know. Like if you show me the evidence that contradicts the theory that the theory doesn't predict, I have to think about my theory, not reject the evidence. So that was such an amazing lesson. I think that he speaks that so beautifully. So I would say that that's, that's the book.

Douglas Vigliotti (49:08)

Excellent. And then the final, final question. What's the one thing that you want to tell the world? It's not what it seems.

Annie Duke (49:16)

Ohhhh.

Douglas Vigliotti (49:18)

You stumped? <laugh>

Annie Duke (49:20)

Well, the reason is that I want to say everything.

Douglas Vigliotti (49:24)

I know it's true.

Annie Duke (49:25)

And I'm going to say that ‘cause I think that the thing is that if we're not always approaching the world through the standpoint of why am I wrong? If we think, why am I right then I don't think that we ever are going to catch any of this stuff that isn't what it seems. So I think that part of the big problem is that we're so blind to our own bias, me included. I mean, you know, that we don't really recognize how much the things that we believe or the tribes that we belong to are influencing the way that we're processing information. And so it's sort of like the whole world isn't what it seems because we think we're so sure about what's true and false and we don't really recognize like we can't sit in somebody else's shoes. We can't really see something from someone else's perspective. We can only try at it. And I think until you recognize that, you're always, you're always trying to calibrate and you're always trying to adjust because you always have to come from the standpoint of it's not what it seems. How can I get closer to what it really is, that you're dead/ So I think that that's why, that's why I would say everything.

Douglas Vigliotti (50:33)

Well, awesome. So I couldn't have said it better.

Annie Duke (50:35)

I don't know if that's a dissatisfying answer for you.

Douglas Vigliotti (50:37)

No, no, no, no, no. That's perfect. I mean, that's my stance as well. So, Annie, this has been an awesome conversation. Thank you so much again for coming on. Please everyone go support Annie. Buy the book, Thinking In Bets: How to Make Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts. I loved it. I don’t know if I mentioned it already. Maybe I did. It was on my reading list. Number one book on my reading list in May.

Annie Duke (50:57)

Thank you.

Douglas Vigliotti (50:57)

Yeah, absolutely. And it's been great. Thank you so much, Annie.

Annie Duke (51:01)

Thank you so much.

Douglas Vigliotti (51:03)

Absolutely.